Cloud & Infrastructure · pricing
IBM Cloud pricing
IBM Cloud publishes 2 tiers. Below is each one, what it adds over the tier beneath it, and where the ladder stops being worth climbing for most people.
- Entry price
- Free
- Model
- Usage-based
- Tiers
- 2
- Free tier
- Yes
IBM Cloud plans, side by side
Every published tier in ascending order of price, with the number of features each one lists. An absence here means the record does not itemise it, not that the tier lacks it.
| Plan | Price | Features listed | Step up from the tier below |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lite Plan | Free | 4 | Entry tier |
| Standard Plan | Free | 4 | +$0/month, 4 more features |
What each tier adds
The set difference between each tier's feature list and the one beneath it. Where a tier lists nothing new, the vendor has either stopped repeating the inherited list or the tier raises limits rather than adding capability, the record does not distinguish the two, so this page does not either.
Lite Plan
FreeThe entry tier. It covers free services, limited resources, 30-day trial, ibm cloud support.
Standard Plan
FreeOver Lite Plan, this tier adds:
- Pay-as-you-go
- Enterprise support
- Advanced services
- Dedicated resources
Where IBM Cloud stops being free
Lite Plan, Free
- Free services
- Limited resources
- 30-day trial
- IBM Cloud support
No paid tier on record
IBM Cloud lists a free tier and no priced tier above it in the record we hold.
What the product covers
The full IBM Cloud feature record, grouped as the catalogue groups it. This is the product as a whole; the record does not map every feature onto a specific tier.
Core
- Virtual Servers
- Bare Metal
- Cloud Foundry
- Kubernetes
- Watson AI
- Blockchain
- Databases
- API Gateway
Integrations
- Terraform
- Ansible
- Docker
- Kubernetes
- Jenkins
Security
- SOC2
- ISO27001
- HIPAA
- FedRAMP
Deployment
- Cloud deployment
- Hybrid deployment
- On-premise deployment
Platform
- Linux support
- Windows support
- Api support
- Cli support
People bring IBM Cloud in for running containerized and vm workloads on ibm's public cloud, building on watson apis and ibm middleware as managed services. If that is not the job you are buying for, the alternatives to IBM Cloud are worth a look before you commit to a tier.
How that compares in Cloud & Infrastructure
Too few cloud & infrastructure tools in this directory publish a starting price to quote a meaningful median, so the table below is a like-for-like list rather than a ranking.
| Tool | Entry price | Model | Rated | Head to head |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IBM Cloud (this page) | Free | usage-based | - | |
| DigitalOcean | Free, then $4/month | usage-based | - | vs IBM Cloud |
| Chef | Free | open-source | - | vs IBM Cloud |
| Alibaba Cloud | Free | usage-based | - | vs IBM Cloud |
| Lambda (AWS Serverless) | Free | usage-based | - | vs IBM Cloud |
| Contabo | €4.5/month | - | - | vs IBM Cloud |
| Akamai | $1000/month | quote | - | vs IBM Cloud |
Ratings are aggregated from third-party sources and imported with each catalogue entry, they are not reviews hosted on Softwr. How each figure is used is set out on the IBM Cloud badges page.
Before you pay for IBM Cloud
Three things this page cannot tell you, and all three change the bill. The record carries a price and a billing period but not the unit - per-seat and flat-rate pricing are indistinguishable in this data, so a five-person team may be looking at five times the figure above. It carries no annual rate, so any discount for paying yearly is not something this page can quote. And it carries no trial length.
What it can tell you is the shape of the ladder: 2 tiers between Free and Free, with the jump itemised above. Because there is a free tier, the cheapest way to answer the rest is to use it before paying anything.
IBM Cloud runs on linux, windows, api, cli, and is published by IBM Corporation of Armonk, NY. The full record is on the IBM Cloud review, and the rest of the category is under best cloud & infrastructure tools.
IBM Cloud pricing questions
- How much does IBM Cloud cost?
- IBM Cloud publishes 2 tiers, from Free for Lite Plan up to Free for Standard Plan. The entry tier costs nothing.
- Does IBM Cloud have a free plan?
- Yes. The Lite Plan tier costs nothing and covers free services, limited resources, 30-day trial.
- What is the difference between Lite Plan and Standard Plan on IBM Cloud?
- Standard Plan costs Free against Free, and adds pay-as-you-go, enterprise support, advanced services, dedicated resources.
- Which cloud & infrastructure tools can I use without paying?
- 6 of the 8 cloud & infrastructure tools listed alongside IBM Cloud have a free tier: DigitalOcean, Chef, Alibaba Cloud, Lambda (AWS Serverless), AWS (Amazon Web Services).
- What am I actually paying for with IBM Cloud?
- The record lists 24 features across 5 areas: core, integrations, security, deployment, platform. In practice it is brought in for running containerized and vm workloads on ibm's public cloud, building on watson apis and ibm middleware as managed services.
- Does IBM Cloud charge per user?
- The record carries a price and a billing period for each of its 2 tiers, but not the unit that price is charged in. Per-seat and flat-rate billing look identical in this data, so check the vendor's page before budgeting for a team.
- Are these IBM Cloud prices current?
- They are what the catalogue entry holds, refreshed when the entry is. Vendors change pricing without notice and nobody at Softwr re-verifies each tier by hand, so treat this as a structured summary and the vendor's own pricing page as the authority.
- What should I compare IBM Cloud against before paying?
- The closest cloud & infrastructure tools in this directory are DigitalOcean, Chef, Alibaba Cloud, Lambda (AWS Serverless). Each has a side-by-side comparison with IBM Cloud covering price, platforms and features.